Two days later, the mid-morning sun of Friton bathed the rolling hills in a soft, golden warmth.
Standing on the gravel path leading up to the new headquarters, Kasavin, Ross Dalle, and Lin Liseli stared in silence. They had just disembarked from the shuttle, their luggage piled neatly beside them, but none of them moved to pick it up.
"Are we... really going to work here?" Lin asked, her voice hushed. She shielded her eyes, tracing the lines of the structure. It looked like the landscape had decided to grow a sanctuary. The walls were curved, made of a composite material that mimicked white stone.
"Finally," Ross Dalle exhaled, stretching his arms wide. "No more recording vocals in a closet padded with old mattresses. This place rocks!"
Kasavin adjusted his glasses, looking at the wind turbines spinning lazily in the distance. "I've never seen an office blended together with nature like this. Are we sure we aren't at a conservation organization's HQ? I feel like we would encounter endangered birds."
As if on cue, the massive glass front doors slid open silently. Bem Lendu stepped out, waving a hand with a wide, welcoming grin.
"Guys!" Bem called out. "Come on in!"
They grabbed their bags and walked toward the entrance. As they crossed the threshold, a deep, soothing voice resonated from the air around them, devoid of any mechanical tinny-ness.
"Welcome to Round Table Studios. Atmosphere optimized. Lighting set to ambient daylight."
"Whoa," Lin breathed, spinning in a slow circle. "Who was that?"
"That's Gawain," Bem explained, gesturing them forward. "The building manager. Or rather, the building itself."
They stepped into the atrium, and the interior was even more striking than the exterior. It was vast, open, and flooded with natural light that filtered through smart-glass skylights. There were no fluorescent hums, no rows of grey cubicles. Instead, the floor was a polished natural stone, and right in the center of the lobby was a thriving indoor garden.
"I've never worked professionally in a studio before," Dalle admitted, looking around. "But I always assumed it would be dark, cramped, and efficiently blocked off to crush your soul. This is..."
"It's an outlier," Kasavin finished for him. "Definitely an outlier."
Lin hurried over to the central garden, crouching down. "Look at this!" She pointed to a large butterfly with iridescent blue wings resting on a fern. "I've never seen this color palette in real life. Is this native to Friton?"
"It is. The Azure Glider."
The voice didn't come from Bem or Gawain.
They turned around. Standing near the reception desk was a teenager dressed in casual cargo pants and a loose t-shirt, holding a tablet. He looked like an intern, or maybe a courier dropping off a package.
"You guys came early," the boy said with a relaxed smile. "Welcome. This is where we will work on our game from now on."
Lin blinked, standing up. She looked at the kid, then at Bem. "Uhh... thanks? Is Arthur around? Or is he remote today?"
Arthur sighed a long, suffering sound that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand similar conversations. He rubbed the back of his neck, his white streak of hair catching the light.
"I am Arthur," he said simply.
Silence.
Absolute, heavy silence descended on the atrium. A maintenance Compadre whirred past them, sweeping a speck of dust, sounding incredibly loud in the quiet.
"Hah?" Dalle let out a confused noise.
"Arthur," Dorian repeated. "Founder. Lead Dev. The guy who pays your checks."
Kasavin stared. Lin's jaw unhinged. Dalle dropped his bag.
Then, the dam broke.
"YOU?!" Lin shrieked. "You're a baby! You're literally a baby!"
"I'm eighteen next month!" Dorian protested.
"Wait, wait," Kasavin stammered, his writer's brain trying to reconcile the maturity of the Hades script with the boy in front of him. "The guy who wrote the philosophical debates on death... is a teenager?"
"Does your father know you run a company?" Dalle asked, looking bewildered.
Dorian groaned, burying his face in his hands while Bem chuckled in the background. "Alright, get it all out. Laugh, scream, call me a child prodigy. Let's get the shock over with so we can work."
It took a solid ten minutes of rapid-fire questions; How? When? Why? Are you legally allowed to sign contracts? before they calmed down enough to function.
Once the hysteria subsided, Dorian and Bem led the shell-shocked trio deeper into the building. They walked through a corridor of glass and wood until they reached a set of double doors.
"This," Dorian said, pushing the doors open, "is the Junction."
It was a massive, circular room that served as the heart of the studio. In the center was a round configuration of desks where Logan Kim was currently typing furiously, surrounded by empty coffee cups.
"Logan!" Lin waved.
Logan didn't look up, his fingers flying. "Hey guys. Can't talk. Bug fixing the beta reward for FramePerfect. If I don't patch this collision error, he's going to clip through the floor again."
Dorian walked to the center of the room. "This is the main office. The Junction. Think of it as the hub."
He pointed to a sleek elevator on the left wall. "That lift goes exclusively to the third floor. That's Sound and Audio. Dalle, that's your kingdom. Recording booths, foley pits, mixing suites. Soundproofed to military standards."
He pointed to a spiraling staircase leading down. "First floor is Visual Arts and the 'Boarding Room.' It's a simulated 3D space for artists to create assets in virtual reality without the mess. Lin, you can paint in mid-air down there."
"And here," he tapped the desk where Logan was working. "This is Dev and Narrative. Where we put it all together."
Dorian looked at his team, his eclectic, talented, and currently bewildered team.
"We aren't just making games here," Dorian said, a spark of the 'Arthur' authority returning to his voice. "We're building worlds. So... pick a chair."
The team moved toward the central ring of desks, the "Round Table." They hesitated for a moment, eyeing the hover-chairs like they were thrones, before finally claiming their spots.
Arthur walked to the main chair, facing the central monitor array and leaned against it.
"There are a lot of features to this studio," Arthur began, his voice echoing slightly in the high-ceilinged room. "But with three days before our beta test launches, I don't have time to personally tour you through every facility. So, let me introduce you to your guide."
He looked up at the ceiling. "Gawain, say hello."
"Hello, Lin Liseli, Ross Dalle, and Kasavin," the soothing male voice resonated from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Welcome to the Junction."
Lin jumped slightly. "Whoa. It's the lobby voice."
"That is Gawain," Arthur explained. "They are the building. They manage the environment, the security, and the logistics. If you need a specific room, or need the temperature adjusted, just ask."
Kasavin adjusted his glasses, looking around with a frown of concentration. "I'm sorry, I've never seen this tech before. Are you telling me Gawain is like a Compadre system, but the 'frame' is the entire building structure?"
Logan, who hadn't looked up from his code until now, spun his chair around. "Not only the building. It's the area. Gawain controls the floating wind turbines you saw outside in the pasture, the irrigation for the garden, even the perimeter sensors."
Dalle leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "So... we work inside a giant Compadre? I never would have thought that was possible. It feels... alive."
"It's the same system used in the Imperator-class Dreadnoughts the Accord uses," Bem Lendu chimed in casually from his station, typing away at a security protocol. "Honestly, this is normal for high-end infrastructure. It's just rarely applied to civilian architecture."
Dalle, Liseli, and Kasavin froze. Their heads snapped toward Bem in unison.
"WHAT?!" they shouted.
Kasavin stood up, his chair scraping loudly. "How do you know Dreadnought-class ships use this tech? Those are the Accord's mobile military bases! That is classified information!"
"The fact that Logan and Bem know this is... disturbing," Lin added, her eyes wide. "We aren't talking about standard ships. We're talking about Titans, Judicators, Worldbreakers... the most guarded secrets in the fleet!"
"It's not that shocking," Bem said, looking confused by their reaction. "We just wanted to help the way we know how. To make our work even better, we used the best tools available."
"We're just simple military engineers," Logan said with a shrug, returning to his screen as if discussing a sandwich preference. "Nothing to be awed about. I used to patch the targeting arrays on the Vanguard."
The room went silent. Kasavin looked at Arthur, waiting for him to deny it.
Arthur just smiled.
Bem nodded and went back to typing.
Arthur clapped his hands to break the tension. "I know you guys just landed, and your brains are probably melting from the information overload. How about we take today as an adjustment period?"
He looked up. "Gawain."
"Yes, Sir," the building replied instantly.
"Lead them to the employee lounge and give them the full tour. Show them the amenities."
"Command accepted," Gawain replied. "Please follow the lights."
From the polished floor, a soft, pulsating line of blue light materialized, leading from the Junction toward a set of double doors on the far side of the room. It hovered at knee height, distinct and easy to follow.
"Follow Gawain and rest up," Arthur instructed. "We start the work tomorrow."
Liseli, Dalle, and Kasavin stood up slowly, casting one last glance at the "simple military engineers" before turning to follow the holographic guide out of the room, muttering about secret government projects.
…
Several days later, in a comfortable house in the Mid-Rim, the morning routine was devolving into chaos.
"Please, Mom!" Junior Oryn Lyn pleaded, clutching his doorframe. "I just need today! I got a reward from the game I played! It's coming in five hours! I need to get it as soon as possible!"
His mother stood in the hallway, her face turning a dangerous shade of red. It was a normal morning, but then her only son was trying to skip school for a video game.
"Junior Oryn Lyn..." she hissed, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You better put your shoes on right now or I will–"
"Explain yourself, son."
The deep voice of his father cut through the tension. He walked out of the kitchen, holding a mug of caf, looking calm but serious.
Junior looked at his dad. Usually, his father was the funny one, the one who cracked jokes and took his side against Mom's strictness. But today, his expression was unreadable.
"We don't joke about these things, Junior," his father said, leaning against the wall. "Is there a real reason you don't want to go to school? Are you being bullied? Is the work too hard?"
Junior shrank back slightly. "No... it's not that I don't want to go to school. It's just... I want to receive the reward I got. I worked really hard to get the answer, Dad. I was the first one."
His mom threw her hands up. "It's a game, Junior! A digital toy!"
"Explain from the beginning," his father interrupted, checking his wrist chrono. "You got... ten minutes. Convince me."
Junior took a deep breath. He ran into his room and grabbed his heliopad, bringing up his notes. He projected them into the hallway air, a complex web of forum posts, timestamps, frame-by-frame analysis of the Stardew Valley event, and his own handwritten logic trees.
"Okay, so," Junior started, his voice shaking but gaining confidence as he spoke about his passion. "This game had a global event. Millions of people were playing. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, but the haystack was the size of a planet."
He pointed to a specific sequence of images. "Everyone was looking at the surface level. But I noticed the animation frames didn't match the lore text. I spent three days cross-referencing the in-game library with the developer's poems. I realized the second clue wasn't about the location, but the history."
He showed the timestamp of his forum post, and the developer's reply confirming he was the winner.
His father took the heliopad, scrolling through the notes. He asked a few sharp questions about the logic, about how Junior deduced X from Y. Junior explained it simply, breaking down the gaming terms into terms his parents could understand.
His father handed the pad back. He exhaled slowly. "So... you're saying you got the reward. Out of all the players in the galaxy, millions of them, you found this first?"
Junior nodded vigorously. "Yes. Keeneyejunior. That's me."
"Do you like puzzles like this?" his father asked, looking at his son with a new light in his eyes.
"I like analyzing things," Junior said, a small smile appearing. "It's fun. It makes sense."
"All of this doesn't matter!" his mom interjected, though her anger seemed to have lost some of its steam. "You want to skip school because of a silly video game! Education comes first!"
His father held up a hand. "When will you receive the reward?"
"The mail says to wait for five more hours," Junior said.
His father nodded. "Go to your room first. Pack your bag. I'll talk to your mom."
Junior felt his heart sink, but he obeyed, trudging back into his room and closing the door.
Inside the room, he could hear the muffled voices of his parents. His mom sounded exasperated, his dad calm and low. Junior sat on his bed, staring at his bag.
Ten minutes later, a knock sounded on his door.
"Come in," Junior mumbled.
The door opened. His dad stood there, dressed in his work clothes. "Alright. You go to school."
Junior slumped his shoulders, grabbing his bag. "Okay."
"But," his dad continued, a small grin breaking through his serious facade. "I'll pick you up early. Before the time limit."
Junior's head snapped up. "So... I can go home early?"
"Yes," his dad said. "So you still go to school and do your morning classes. This is because you were honest and you explained your reasoning properly. You showed me you weren't just being lazy, but that you achieved something. That deserves a reward too."
Junior dropped his bag and rushed to his dad, hugging him around the waist. "Thanks, Dad!"
His dad patted his back, laughing. "Don't thank me. Thank your mom. She's the one who agreed to let you off the hook this once."
Junior pulled back and shouted down the hallway, "THANKS MOM!"
"JUST GET IN THE SPEEDER!" his mom shouted back, though there was a hint of a laugh in her voice.
…
The atmosphere inside the Junction was one of controlled chaos. The circular desk was lit up like a Christmas tree, with holographic screens floating above every station.
In the center of the room, hovering above the Round Table, was a massive projection of the Stellarcaster FramePerfect. He was currently live, speedrunning a platformer, oblivious that the architects of his next obsession were watching him from a planet away.
Arthur paced around the command circle, checking the server load for the fourth time in ten minutes.
"Network stability?" Arthur asked.
"Green across the board," Bem Lendu replied, his fingers dancing across his terminal. "Gawain is prioritizing bandwidth to the external uplink. We have a direct pipe to the five winners."
"Access codes?" Arthur turned to Lin.
"All encrypted and ready to transfer, Arthur," Lin Liseli said, her hand hovering over the execute key. She looked at the young founder, noticing the slight tremor in his hand. "Arthur... are you sure this won't break? We've never tested the external load with this specific build."
Arthur took a breath. "I..."
"Arthur," Logan Kim cut in, spinning his chair around. He looked relaxed, almost bored, though his eyes were sharp. "I know you're worried. It's your baby. But this is the point of a beta test. It is meant for us to see the player feedback."
Logan gestured to the live feed of FramePerfect. "As good as any QA team is, players have a knack for breaking games in ways we can't imagine. They will find the cracks we missed. It's our job to do our best, and we, in this stage, have already done our best. So let's believe in the players to break our game. That's how we make it perfect."
Arthur chuckled, the tension in his shoulders dropping. "You always know what to say, Logan."
"I try," Logan grinned.
"Alright," Arthur said, his voice firm. "Send it, Lin."
Lin hit [ENTER].
Whoosh.
Five data packets shot out from Friton, traversing the digital highways of the Accord, heading for five specific inboxes.
"Now," Arthur whispered, looking at the screens. "All we can do is wait."
…
On screen, FramePerfect was in the middle of a "frame-perfect" jump in Cyber-Ninja 4.
PING.
A distinct, heavy notification sound echoed through his stream setup. It was a custom sound effect embedded in the priority message.
FramePerfect froze. His character fell into a pit of spikes.
"Chat..." FramePerfect whispered, ignoring the 'Game Over' screen. "Chat... it's here."
He minimized the game instantly. The chat exploded.
> ITS TIME
> THE REWARD
> OPEN IT
> WHATS IN THE BOX
"Hold on, hold on," FramePerfect said, his hands shaking slightly. "Safety first. Don't want any leak."
He dragged the mail window to his hidden side monitor, away from the stream capture. He opened it.
His eyes went wide. The reflection of a deep red light washed over his face.
"Oh my god," he breathed.
He quickly took a screenshot, cropped out the personal access link, and dragged the image back onto the main stream for the chat to see.
It wasn't a standard text email. It was a digital invitation card, styled in heavy, hand-drawn art. The background was a deep, blood-soaked red, with jagged black shadows forming the silhouette of a menacing, three-headed dog.
In the center, written in sharp, ancient-looking font, were the words:
THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
You have been summoned to the Underworld. Accepting this invitation binds your soul to the beta. Once you go in... you can't ever leave.
The chat erupted.
> HOLY SHIT
> UNDERWORLD?!
> IS THIS A NEW GAME?
> "CANT EVER LEAVE"?? WHAT?
> LETS GOOOO ACHILLES TIME
> ART STYLE IS SICK
> RTS NEW GAME!!
FramePerfect looked directly into the camera lens, his expression shifting from awe to competitive intensity.
"Thank you, Round Table Studios, once again," he said, his voice low. "This looks... promising. But let me warn you."
He leaned in.
"I will break your game. There is a reason why I never get sponsored by game studios. I don't play nice. I find the bugs, I find the exploits, and without any bias."
A message popped up in chat from one of the chat: 'Isn't it because you're irrelevant and toxic?'
FramePerfect didn't blink. "Shut up. Mod, time out that guy."
The message vanished instantly. The chat laughed, spamming emotes of hammers and salt.
"I break games, Chat," FramePerfect declared, cracking his knuckles. "And today, you will see me triumph over Round Table Studios. They think they made a hard game? I eat hard games for breakfast."
> BRO DECLARING WAR BY HIMSELF
> DEV VS SPEEDRUNNER
> RIP RTS
FramePerfect clicked the link on his private screen.
[DOWNLOADING ASSETS...]
The tale of the Underworld had begun.
**A/N**
~Read Advance Chapter and Support me on [email protected]/SmilinKujo~
~🧣KujoW
**A/N**